Hail Poetry!

Oh, I love snow... sad since we hardly ever have any here and when it comes it neither lasts long nor is it deep. But I know snow from visiting it in the moutains and in the midwest. These poems, Jjorge, give a good glimpse of snow. I love the immediacy of the Hardy poem -- I feel like I am peeking out the window with him and he ends it so kindly. I was afraid he might turn away the cat. Yours is so much more modern and reads like a letter. I love that style and the image of the snow as a bandage. It works quite well... even the way the "bandage" gets old (well, in Washington, the bandage would quickly melt... but I've seen the old snow in Minnesota, rusty & ragged).

I hope your R.I. snow is lovely now and that the quiet is nearly unbearable in its beauty.

Quote:

from Wunderground:
Snow...will fall heavily at times through at least 11 am from northern Providence County into the hills of eastern Windham County and up into southern Worcester County...including Worcester. Accumulations of an inch per hour are expected.

Weather Underground also reports that in 2001 on this day, there was a record high of 72F.

Here's a short Robert Frost poem:

A PATCH OF OLD SNOW
There's a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've forgotten --
If I ever read it.

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Um, thank you both, and Hardy too.

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Hi Piff, Osso, et al,

It's about 12:30 p.m. in Rogues Island.
It's been snowing intermittently here since 4:30 yesterday afternoon.

Thus far the accumulation in my yard is about ten inches.
Much of the time the snow has been very fine and light.
That's what I see now, as I look up from my computer
and gaze out the window, across the yard to the deserted street.

The weatherman says the snow will be intermittent, "heavy at
times", through the day and night and most of tomorrow.
There is a slight wind now which will increase, -- 'Wind gusts to fifty miles per hour'.
The weatherman predicts eighteen to twenty-two inches of
white stuff before we're done. (I can hear ehBeth saying, "small potatoes")

It could be more.

I should be outside with my shovel getting a head start on my
driveway.

I think I'll go for a walk.

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"the only moon"
Ten inches??? <waves of coveting engulf me> The most we've ever had is five, maybe six inches of short-lived snow.

I'm sorry to hear the wind is rising. Have fun on the walk. If I were over there, I'd loan you my dogs who are excellent walkers. (As long as I'm pretending, maybe Osso and I'll come along!) The day here dawned in multiple shades of pale orange, gold and blue, but it's a chilly 42.

(I'm pretty sure that Raku is a dog. Very Happy

)

1093 (Moon Walk)
In the dusk, Raku and I
Explore the delights
Of wind-bitter snow
Under the only moon.

from this website:Bear Mountain Dulcimer Poetry

It's an interesting concept, to make a dulcimer and hide a poem inside.

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Piffka--
Ten inches??? <waves of coveting engulf me> The most we've ever had is five,
maybe six inches of short-lived snow.

jj--
LOL It's at least fourteen now ...and still coming.

Piffka--
I'm sorry to hear the wind is rising. Have fun on the walk. If I were over there,
I'd loan you my dogs who are excellent walkers.

jj--
Maybe I'd take you up on your offer. This snow is too deep for MY two little
guys. It scares them, and no wonder, it's almost over their heads already!

Piffka--
(As long as I'm pretending, maybe Osso and I'll come along!)

jj-- great company

Piffka--
The day here dawned in multiple shades of pale orange, gold and blue,
but it's a chilly 42.

jj-- I haven't seen a dawn in awhile, I have to admit.

Piffka--

(I'm pretty sure that Raku is a dog. )

1093 (Moon Walk)
In the dusk, Raku and I
Explore the delights
Of wind-bitter snow
Under the only moon.

from this website:Bear Mountain Dulcimer Poetry
It's an interesting concept, to make a dulcimer and hide a poem inside.

jj--
A lovely little poem. Nice website. Fascinating concept, dulcimers with poetry
inside.

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Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
( Robert Frost )

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I found this poem and thought it deserved to get a little wider audience.

"Passing T'ien-Men Street in Ch'ang-an and Seeing a Distant View of Chung-Nan Mountain"

Po Chü-i (772-846)

The snow has gone from Chung-nan; spring is almost come.
Lovely in the distance its blue colors, against the brown of the streets.
A thousand coaches, ten thousand horsemen pass down the Nine Roads;
Turns his head and looks at the mountains,--not one man!

http://www.chinaoutdoors.com/destinations/essential/images/hengshan.jpg

And here are a couple poems about the same mountain by KUAN HSUI.

"Chung-nan Mountain Monk"

Are you famous for sharp dealing,
known far and wide?
He wouldn't have heard.

Dressed in straw and
gnawing stems,
he passes through
the dawn light.

Thoughts far off: the mountain
snow lies ten feet deep.

Once in a long while
some Mountain Man
comes knocking at his gate.

http://www.chinaoutdoors.com/destinations/essential/images/huashan1.jpg

"Hymn on the Way"

Grass and tree have the Buddha nature.
They are not different from me.
If I could just be like the grass and the trees,
I'd find the way in no time.
Men nowadays won't go the way:
point it out, and they curse it.
A wounded sigh for these folks:
paupers gone begging on a mountain of gold.

http://www.chinaoutdoors.com/destinations/essential/images/taishan.jpg

Quote:

(Chung-Nan or) Zhongnan Mountain is also called Taiyi Mountain and includes Cuihua Mount, Nanwutai, Guifeng Mount, of which Zhongnan Mountain is known for its steepness and dangerousness and picturesque scenery.

Cuihua Mount lies 30 km away from Hua Mount, it is known for its odd peaks and strange caves and clean pools as well as ancient temples. Scenic spots includ Taiyi Pool, Wind Cave, Ice Cave and Cuihua Temple.

Taiyi Pool, circled by high and steep mountains, is a lake between mountain, is a lake between mountains. Its jade green water,slightly rolling waves and the reflection of grand mountains all contribute to the beauties of the scenic spot. Boating on the pool will certainly ensure you a complete relaxation from daily busy works and make you return to the nature.

The Wind Cave, formed by two big granite rocks, lies west of Taiyi Mountain and is 15 meters high and 40 meters deep.You will feel very cool while standing in the cave thanks to the flowing cool air through the cave.

To the north of Wind Cave ,there lies Ice Cave. Even in summer hard ice can be found in the cave. Temple Fair will be held in front of Cuihua temple on June 1-3 in luner calender every year,when a great number of tourists will crowd to the temple, taking in a magnificent scene.

Nanwutai mountain is covered with green trees and abounds in medicinal materials. There stands five peaks at the top of the mountain, namely, Guanyin, Wenshu, Qingliang, Shesheng and Lingying.

Guifeng Mountain is commonly known as Jianshan Mountain, including Ziguo, Dading, Lingyun and Luohan peaks. Main scenic spot is Gaoguan Waterfall, which is located on the southern side of Guifeng Mountain. Having a fall of 20 meters, the waterfall sends thunderous sound as water pour down into the deep pond. The lower reaches of the waterfall is more even at which a lake is formed. It is an ideal place for picnic and camping.

from: http://www.westtour.net/english/sx/you/zls.htm

also see: http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/1259.html

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Hi, Piffka, it is March again. Spring is also a season of parting and reviving at the same time.

Grass
Po Chü-i (Bai Juyi)

Wild grasses spreading o'er the plain
With every season come and go.
Heath fire can't burn them up, again
They rise when the vernal winds blow.
Their fragrance o'erruns the pathway;
Their color invades the ruined town.
Seeing my friend going away,
My sorrow grows like grass o'ergrown.

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Thank you both.

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This has been lovely reading on a snowy night in Denver.

Here is one by Richard Wilbur:

Boy at Window

Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a god-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to Paradise.

The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.
Richard Wilbur

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Hi Satt -- great poem, great poet! Thanks. Did you like the photos of Chinese mountains that I found? I was astounded by them.

Hi Osso, nice to see you here! I've been wondering about your signature line, is it from a poem???

Diane, that's a lovely poem, the pure drop of a tear shed by an emotional snowman makes sense to me! I've got another wintry poem for you.

I've been enjoying an old college text filled with poetry discussions. There are some great poems in there (thoroughly analyzed of course, sigh). Here's one by Emily Dickinson.

Part One: Life
XCIX

THERE is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

________

(In my little textbook the author asks us to substitute steamship, horses and streetcar for Frigate, Coursers and Chariot... in order to more fully appreciate the poem. Very Happy

It's that kind of book.)

And here is the wintry poem which I liked because of the sound made by the owl (used by our family as part of a children's lullaby).

When Icicles Hang By The Wall
William Shakespeare

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail.
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit!
To-who!?-a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs* hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit!
To-who!?-a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

*not the crustacean - crab-apples

That family lullaby goes like this:

To-whit, to-who, he solemnly cries.
To-whit, to-who, from morning 'til night.
To-whit, to-who, the whole--- night through...
To-whit... To-whit... To-Whoooooo.

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Piffka..
The photos are great. As I have been focusing on photos of dried up Mars these days, I much appreciate the beauty of sights on the Earth all the more. Laughing

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No, it's a painting title, and JLNobody suggested I write a poem about it. I put it in my signature to remind me..

I haven't gotten much into poetry writing - as such - since I don't have a command of the fundamental rules, re meter, and so on. I remember iambic pentameter a bit and that sort of scares me. I did invest in Poetry for Dummies because I suppose it has some basic stuff but the book sits obnoxiously on my living room table, next to the dog's sofa, unread. Maybe I'll drag the ugly thing into my bedroom..

Not to knock myself particularly, I think that I think and write poetically moderately often, just not in poem form.

I asked once on abuzz about 'how to write poetry' books and several people answered, but the books were Very expensive. And I am not really interested in reading a tome, just getting some basic sense of poetry 'layout'.

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Here you go, Osso... this is the college text I've been enjoying and it's only $1, check abebooks. That '63 is the second edition, mine is the third. I think it will tell you all you need to know. Wink

Quote:

Perrine, Laurence
Sound and Sense
New York: Harcourt Brace and World Inc. 1963. Soft Cover. Fair/No Jacket. Bookseller Inventory #003496
Price: US$ 1.00 (Convert Currency)
Bookseller: Spotlight Books/FORkids, inc., Norfolk, VA, U.S.A.

Writing poetry after reading that one book would be akin to this Tassajara class I was looking at. You may remember, I'm headed toward painting (with no training!).

Quote:

...Painting with No-Mind
with Svargo Schuller and Katherine Thanas
April 27-30
$200 plus room and board and $30 materials fee
We will use water, color, brush, paper and body senses to arrive at a state of receptivity and clarity beyond everyday mind. Through exercises with painting , and in nature, we will unlearn the familiar and discover a surprising creativity. We will then integrate our experience into everyday life through sitting meditation, posture instruction and dharma talks.

Interesting site, Satt -- But... Deimos doesn't look round! Is it? Are you studying the Mars photos for fun or work? Deimos is like an asteroid that link said. Well, hmmm, here's a poem about a meteorite, but it's from one of my favorite prose authors.

The Meteorite

Among the hills a meteorite
Lies huge; and moss has overgrown,
And wind and rain with touches light
Made soft, the contours of the stone.

Thus easily can Earth digest
A cinder of sidereal fire,
And make her translunary guest
The native of an English shire.

Nor is it strange these wanderers
Find in her lap their fitting place,
For every particle that's hers
Came at the first from outer space.

All that is Earth has once been sky;
Down from the sun of old she came,
Or from some star that travelled by
Too close to his entangling flame.

Hence, if belated drops yet fall
From heaven, on these her plastic power
Still works as once it worked on all
The glad rush of the golden shower.

CS Lewis

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Virginia Hamilton Adair, a poet who published her first collection of poems at the age of 83, died this week at age 91. Here's one of the poems from her collection, Living on Fire (which brings back vivid memories of my childhood, despite the difference in our ages):

Porches I

In those days the front porches
with their wicker chairs and hanging baskets of flowers
became chapels of rest at the day's end,
long arms of the setting sun reaching out to us.

Talk came in soft murmurs like a prayer.
The children gathered from their games
to sit in silence on the wooden steps.

The trees were ancient guardians around us
and the closing down of evening was like violet eyelids
lowered over the day's brightness.

"We should light the lamps," someone said.
But who would care to spoil the quiet ritual
of sundown, nightfall? Somewhere just ahead
lay the ceremony of sleep.

If you want to read more about Virginia Hamilton Adair, here are links to the obituary that appeared in the New York Times, and to an interview she did with PBS in 1996.

New York Times obituary of Virginia Hamilton Adair

PBS interview with Virginia Hamilton Adair

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Thanks for the links, Bree. I'm going to look further into Ms. Adair's writings. The "Porches" poem is lovely. I love: "The trees were ancient guardians around us and the closing down of evening was like violet eyelids lowered over the day's brightness. "

It's nice to see this thread revived.

Laughter by Stephen Spender

That time you laughed
Fell over on the floor laughing

And then my laughter too caught fire
One blaze of both our laughing

Remembered across distances long after

Not gone not gone not altogether
Extinguished by the Ice Age of your death.

When you were living
It lingered in the world
Among things only put aside
In cupboards - letters, clothes,
photographs taken on that journey
We went together

All now become
On one side - yours - pure absence
On mine, that vacuum
Nature, we are told, abhors.

Which now the memory of our laughing
Rushes in to fill.

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poetry .....the music of life
poetry is music to me. it is the song of life. each poem is a story. each story is a new song. Smile

take away the song and the words are gone.im a poet and each poem i write is a part of me. a part of my life and my spiritual being.
How do I submit a poem for all of you to view?
I'm Starhinning

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I finally found that John Ciardi poem I was talking about back in 2003!

I had copied it from some class handout, I think, and did it in my finest and short lived calligraphic hand.

Cezanne[/color]

When I returned from you in the blue of midnight
I sat by my lamp holding a pear in my hand
and hearing you say: "Tell me again you love me.
Say the words to me. Let me hear the words."

And I could no more understand
the words I said to please you,
than you could have seen that pear, which was also
a word love could ask of me. The pear

was the yellow of a glaze but sanded dull
then lit again by my lamp. These first two lights
were then burned red from below. And up through that,
the black and umber of ripeness freckled it.

And somewhere never placeable in that yellow
a memory of green misted its presence.
I held the pear in my hand and could not tell
where its outline entered the light that made it.

I will need six colors and all desperation,"
I said to myself, "to bring this pear to truth.
Yet seh believes a man may say 'I love you'
on arriving, leaving, and all the night between."[/color]

That made a big impression on me when I had just turned eighteen....

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These lines make a big impression on me now, ossobuco-

How vulnerable am I to the inner shadings of love... from the parts who borrow their glow from other light--- to the parts who yet taste and hint of another shade from green- Yes and on to the imperfections that permeate the whole in tiny marks-

and still expecting LOVE, from the entering whiff of fragrance, through the body of rich aroma, and continuing to the lightly sprinkled scents that linger all night... and on into the days of our life.

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BULLETIN

Here's a great new site:

www.poetryarchive.org

THE POETRY ARCHIVE is the world's premier online collection of recordings of poets reading their work.

You can listen free of charge, to the voices of contemporary English-language poets and of poets from the past.

Enjoy

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